Inclusion, emancipation, and resistance from transnational feminist and intersectional perspectives: Re-reading feminist theories

In this research focus, we address the overarching question of how different strands of feminist thought theoretically conceptualize issues of inclusion, emancipation, and political resistance. At its core is the question of how the core principles of freedom, equality, and individual self-determination are reflected upon and expanded from different gender-theoretical perspectives. Historically, liberal, radical, and socialist feminists have always advocated for women's right to individual self-determination and their liberation from patriarchal structures of power. However, liberal notions of individual self-determination and emancipation have been criticized. Intersectional, post- and decolonial feminist theories not only point to the intertwining of different axes of inequality, but also fundamentally underpin a different understanding of emancipation that goes beyond individual freedom and equal opportunities and decentres the subject of emancipation. At the core of our research interest is the question of how the concept of the „collective“ is understood, and how the relationship between individual freedom and autonomy, on the one hand, and collective self-determination and community, on the other, is conceptualized.

Projects

„Rethinking Individual Self-determination and Women’s Emancipation. Global South Feminism(s) and the Contestation of Liberal Feminist Thought“ (abgeschlossen), Kurzzeitprojekt im Rahmen des Exzellenzclusters „Contestations of the Liberal Script“.

Publications of the Department

Çağlar, Gülay (2024): Geschlechtergerechtigkeit im liberalen Skript: Feministische Perspektiven und Kritik. In: Leviathan. Berliner Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft Jg. 52, Sonderband 42: Zur Kritik des liberalen Skripts. Innere Spannungen, gebrochene Versprechen und die Notwendigkeit der Selbsttransformation, hrsg. von Michael Zürn, 267-291. Open Access.

In Progress

Tosold, Léa; Çağlar, Gülay: Imaging Intersectionality. Contesting Individual Self-Determination on the Basis of Global South Anticolonial Feminist Perspectives on Body and Territory.

Tosold, Léa; Çağlar, Gülay: Rethinking Individual Self-determination and Women’s Emancipation: “Global South” Feminism(s) and the Contestation of Liberal Feminist Thought.